Re: [rdiff-backup-users] quick version compatibility question ...

[Andrew Ferguson]

On Aug 1, 2008, at 5:30 PM, Juri Mianovich wrote:
> Thank you - that's very helpful.
>
> Two quick follow-ups:
>
> - will this version to version incompatibility happen regularly, or  
> is the spec nailed down to the point now that I could install 1.2.x  
> everywhere in the field and expect to leave them there for good,  
> even if I upgrade the server to 1.3 or 1.4 or 1.5 over the years ?

The reason the network protocol had to change was because there was a  
bug in the 1.0.x protocol. I would expect the protocol to continue to  
change since we use the Python pickling/unpickling network transport  
mechanism, and that mechanism could certainly change when Python 3 is  
released this fall, or in the future.

Future versions of rdiff-backup will require newer versions of Python,  
since Python 3 offers important Unicode support which rdiff-backup  
will benefit from. Python 3 is not backwards-compatible with Python 2.x


> - I was thinking of waiting until 1.2.1, just to get the early bugs  
> fixed.  Do you see that arriving in the next week or two ?

I certainly won't build a release next week, since I will be traveling  
all of next week without internet access. Of course, that doesn't stop  
another maintainer from releasing one. When I get back, if there are  
any new open bug reports, I will certainly endeavor to fix them.

Frankly, if rdiff-backup 1.0.x is working well for you and it is so  
difficult for you to deploy new versions, there's nothing stopping you  
from sticking with the old stable releases. :-)


Andrew